sending her away like a pet for which we had no further use. So we kept her here, although we didn’t tell her who her parents were.”

“No, it took an especially vindictive woman to do that,” said Baldwin, recalling what Simon had told him of Rose’s words.

“Margherita,” Godfrey agreed. “The bitch has ice in her veins, I swear. Rose went bad from that moment. She wouldn’t listen to her mother, wouldn’t treat any of her duties seriously, simply ran riot. She thought that if her prioress could fail in her oaths, why should she even bother to try? I saw her sometimes, when I came here to help with the sick, and used to feel my heart break within me to see how she was tearing herself and her mother apart. And then she ran away – but not, thank God, too far away, and she still kept coming to see me. Jesus save me, but she offered herself to me once, in gratitude for listening to her, and when I refused, she wept on her knees at my feet, saying that at least I was honourable, and if only she could have copied my example instead of being a jade like her mother. Oh, God! Her words tore at me, showing me how I had sinned – and my penance was the worst of all, not even being able to confess to her that I was her father, for fear that she would turn against me as she had her mother, that she would run away, this time to become a whore in Exeter or London, somewhere where I couldn’t help or protect her.”

Baldwin averted his gaze while the cleric sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “I think, Godfrey, you are lucky to have been able to know your daughter while she grew.”

Godfrey looked up and met Baldwin’s eyes sadly.

“If only she could have known me!”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Hugh returned to his seat, but when he saw that Constance’s pot was empty, he poured another measure for her.

She accepted his ministrations with gratitude. The operation had been hideous, and Constance was not convinced of its efficacity. Merely removing the limb without seeing to the inner body’s humoural balance seemed wrong to her, and after seeing the bloody object lying on the floor, the shards of bone mingled with the sliced flesh, Constance could understand why people looked upon surgeons as no more than butchers.

“Drink it up and have some more,” Hugh suggested.

Constance shook her head weakly. She had the services to attend, the daily round of work to get on with, she couldn’t just sit here and drink the day away. Looking up at Hugh she saw the kindness in his eyes.

It was so like Elias’s expression when they had first met, she thought, and with that, to Hugh’s consternation, she began to sob.

Simon and the Bishop arrived at the door to the nuns’ cloister. Here Jonathan smiled nervously and proposed that they should wait while he went to warn his prioress, so that she could welcome Stapledon in a proper manner.

“You can go and tell her, yes,” Stapledon stated coldly, “but I shall be two paces behind you.”

“My Lord, wouldn’t you prefer that…” Jonathan began, but Stapledon waved him aside.

“You have the choice, Canon, of being there before me or after me, but do not again presume to try to alter my mind. Open this door!”

Shaking, Jonathan inserted his key and Stapledon sailed through, Jonathan skittering after him.

Simon, grinning, watched the bishop cross the nave of the church and stand at the door to the nuns’ cloister, tapping his foot until Jonathan realised that the bishop was waiting for him. Darting forward, muttering his apologies, Jonathan tugged the door wide. Stapledon and his staff-bearer instantly passed through, and Simon went after them, while Jonathan leaned against the opened door like a man who has seen a demon.

“My Lord Bishop! It is an honour, and what a relief to see you once more at our humble convent.”

As the Lady Elizabeth crouched before him, kissing his ring, Stapledon peered shortsightedly around the garth, sketching a cross over her head. “Take me to your chapterhouse, Lady Elizabeth. We need to speak.”

Simon was about to follow, but he knew that the chapterhouse was one place he would not be welcome. It was the hall where any important matters for the community would be discussed, and such things were best hidden from laymen. Instead he set off for the dorter, thinking to see his friend, but as he approached the door, he recalled the screams which had issued from the infirmary. The idea of seeing Cecily’s mangled body was not appealing, and unconsciously Simon bent his steps towards the frater.

Denise sat inside, alone apart from her regular companion, the jug of wine. She raised her pot to him, but then returned to her grim contemplation of the far wall. “Right there,” she said. “That’s where I saw Agnes’s shadow, there on that wall; just like Margherita’s before.”

“Was anyone with her?” Simon asked.

“No, she was all alone. And then there was that scream!” Her eyes closed in apparent revulsion at the memory.

“Where were you when Elias ran through here?”

She put a hand to her mouth as she burped. “In the buttery. Getting more wine.”

He himself wished to go to the buttery for an ale; turning on his heel, he went outside into the yard. Something made him cross the yard to the room where Agnes’s body had been found. It already felt like days ago.

The room was open. A sow was snuffling at the thick gouts of clotted blood on the straw of the floor where Agnes had lain. Simon angrily kicked the big animal out. It was incredible that so many deaths could have occurred one after the other. In a town like Crediton there would not have been so many in so short a space. And now Cecily would likely die as well.

Simon turned to go back to the buttery, when his eye caught a glimpse of something. Crouching, he picked at a thread lying on the ground. It was snapped, but Simon could see that each end was securely tied, one to a hinge, the other to a protruding nail in the doorframe, both a little over a foot above the threshold. At just the height to trip someone, he realised.

Deep in thought he made his way back to the frater and fetched a cup and jug of ale. He was alone now – Denise had gone. Thank God, he thought fervently. The last thing he wanted was her chatter.

Pouring, he drank deeply, staring across at the wall opposite, where Denise had seen Margherita when Moll died – and Agnes last night.

At first Simon thought it odd that Denise hadn’t seen Agnes being followed. Surely the same light which had illuminated the novice’s form should likewise have lit up her attacker? Then he shrugged. Agnes’s attacker was already in the room and had stabbed her without Denise seeing. The tripwire showed that: surely the killer had been hiding in the room, and when his victim tripped the killer stabbed.

Could it have been Luke? Elias confirmed that he had taken the alley along the church’s wall towards the garden. From there he would have circled around the claustral buildings and come to the yard. He could have stabbed Agnes and withdrawn, but if he had, he would have been able to get to the church before the alarm was raised, and finding the communicating door closed, would have gone elsewhere to hide, surely?

Luke said it was his own cry that had alerted the nunnery, and Simon was inclined to believe him.

What about Margherita? It was easy to suspect her. Except she had denied the murders on the Bible.

Elias was a possibility: what if he had lied? Couldn’t he have gone through and stabbed Agnes, then returned later? If he had, it meant he must have set the tripwire when he was last in the convent, and there was nothing to suggest he had been earlier, nor that he knew about the chamber. Who did?

Thoughtfully Simon went back to the yard. The alleyway beckoned, and he walked out along it. At the far side it gave out to a new yard, next to which was the herb garden beneath the infirmary’s window, where Elias had said he would throw pebbles to waken Constance. Simon studied the ground, seeking the knife which had been used to murder Agnes, but could see no sign of it; if the killer had been here, the easiest means of concealing it was the wall – anyone could have thrown it over into the farmyard beyond. Simon retraced his steps and stood once more outside the room in which Agnes had died.

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